Nam
by Mongolian Princess
Summary: Being a girl really isn't worth all the trouble.  A story loosely based on a Disney movie, Mulan.
1. Honor to us All

**Hetalia belongs to the Hetalia guy**

**and Mulan and song belongs to who ever wrote it.**

**Don't sue.**

* * *

Mei grabbed a strand of her older sisters' grimy hair and swirled it around her finger, "You know, Jie-chan, you'd look a lot prettier if you just…" she struggled for worlds, then stopped talking considering Nam had no interest in what she was saying more in her book, 'The Arts of Europe' which wrap her attention.

Mei sighed and looked off out the window.

The little town outside the window was made of grand stone and adorned with attractive males. Males just waiting for a pretty young women (like Nam) to show interest in her own feminism, get a set of pretty robes, a nice hair do, make up, and a husband that would honor their family (you see their mother and father had given up on Nam and started focusing on more on Mei's bride hood).

Mei really wanted her sister to be happy and the only future that didn't involve prison or worse was marriage to a charming man…

And there were plenty of them in the town.

There was the Thai, Kasem, who could draw a smile from even a clam (or her older sister). A young Chinese, Kong, a quite man and a genius scholar who Nam had conversations with that Mei couldn't fallow. The Mongolian boy, Temujin, a smart and strong solider, just the kind of man Nam valued and a dutiful one at that. The Tibetan monk, Shamar, who may not be aloud to marry but Nam never fallowed the rules…

So many more people Mei could ship her older sister off with.

Cue light bulb.

"Hey! I'll set you up with a matchmaker!" Nam looked up at her sister about to reject the idea when Mei added, "It'll bring great honor to mother and father if you manage to convince the match maker for a prince or a great general!"

Despite looks, Nam really did want her family to have great honor that Mei didn't bring them. She was the eldest after all.

And that is how Nam ended up clinging to her horses' mane as it raced down away from their home speeding towards the bath house where both sister and grandmother had set up an 'appointment' with an old women who specialized in the cleaning up rebellious farm girls into cute, proper brides.

The women who was asked as a favor by her friend Mei to dress her sister up for the matchmaker, "Mei, where is your sister? The Matchmaker is not a patient woman!"

"Of all the days to be late!" Mei clapped her hands together looking tearful, "I should have prayed to the ancestors for luck. "

"How lucky can they be?" their neighbor Yong Soo laughed standing confidently beside her, "They're dead. Besides, I've got all the luck we'll need." He cheerfully held a cricket in a cage high above their heads.

Before Mei could snap at him, Nam's horse rode into the square and Nam jumped off while her horse was still running and skidded through the mud almost splattering her impatient sister a guilty grin gracing her face.

"Hey Mei." She said, "Sorry I-"

"No excuses! Come on!" Mei grabbed her sister's hand and dragged her into the bath house and slamming the door in Yong Soo's face.

Although by the look on her face it became obvious that she'd never seen anything quite like Nam.

The women laughed nervously, "It's alright I've seen worse." In less then an instant Nam was striped from her cloths and shoved into a freezing bath. She shivered violently making the water splash around her naked body (Yong Soo wolf whistled from his small hiding place outside the window)

"It's freezing!" Nam cried out, looking miserably at her little sister who giggled and grabbed a metal brush for her sister's hair.

"Would of been warmer if you were here on time!" she smiled cheerfully and began running the brush threw Nam's now clean and shiny hair. Nam was pulled from the wooden tub and pushed behind a shade before being attack with robes. Soon enough Yong Soo was let back in carrying many little trinkets and a huge smile.

He helped them fix her robes not missing a chance to group her, and then get punched but it seemed worth it.

While Mei was securing Nam's long sleeves, she noticed the small, curved writing on her wrist. Mei raised a tentative eyebrow, "Nam, what's this."

Nam quickly withdrew her arm and fluttered her eyelashes uncomfortably, "Uh, notes… In case I forget something?"

Yong Soo and Mei both rolled their eyes; Yong Soo took the cricket out of his pocket and dropped it into Mei's hands, "Hold this. We're going to need more luck than I thought."

Suddenly three more women waltzed into the room each holding a different pair of elegant wedding robes, each more stunning then the last.

Yong Soo was practically drooling when Mei kicked him out and he went to his hiding spot by the window to watch Nam get draped with orange, pink and golden robes then pushed out of the bath house and pulled along by her sister and the other three giggling women.

"There!" Mei said grabbing her older sister who at this point was barely recognizable with her long, stylish robes and hair done up in a bun with flowers and gems and the make up turning her usually yellowish skin a pristine white, "Your ready!"

Yong Soo ran up towards them still lugging around all his good luck charms, "Not yet!" he pulled an apple out and stuck it in Nam's mouth, "An apple for serenity!" he then adorned her neck with rich green beads and a golden pendant, "A pendant for balance! Beads of jade for beauty!" he then grabbed the cricket again and stuffed it into her obi and grinned widely at the sight of his childhood friend, "Now, add a cricket, just for luck, and even you can't blow it!" he slapped her on the back and Nam childishly stuck her tongue out, a gesture which was quickly returned, and was pushed by her sister into the line of other brides.

Nam would never admit it but she felt a painful twinge somewhere inside her as she struggled to catch up with the other women.

She silently prayed for good luck and the opportunity to honor her family.

A crowd was gathering and watching the girls do tricks with their umbrellas (while Nam struggled clumsily with her own) and the matchmaker threw the door open just in time to see Nam trip a little.

Nam's only comfort in this discomforting time was her sister shining excitedly and Yong Soo giving her a thumbs up from the crowd.

She managed to smile weakly back at them.

"Nam!" the matchmaker snapped, looking up from her clipboard.

"Here!" Nam sprang up with her arm high above her head only to meet with a very disapproving glare.

Yong Soo's whisper of, "Who spit in her bean curd?" was all that could be heard in the deathly silence that fallowed the matchmakers next words, "Speaking without permission…" the matchmaker turned and went inside scribbling nasty remarks on her clip board with Nam fallowing anxiously.

Casting one last panicky glace back at her friends, Nam disappeared behind the curtain.

Mei put her face in her hands, "Oh this won't end well."

Almost instantly a loud, pitchy scream could be heard from inside the room and several bangs, Yong Soo blinked a few times before turned to almost sobbing Mei and said rather cheerfully, "I think it's going well."


	2. The Mountains

**Rozle... rlze? Whatever, you know who you are xD - Thank you so much for helping! My English SUCKS and it makes me so happy that you corrected it! I try to correct it best I can but whatever spell check doesn't pick up, I assume is right (Curse you SPELL CHECK!) Thanks again, please continue do so!**

**BTW I haven't even figured where this story is going yet, I kind of have an idea for the next few chapters though. Sorry there's no dialogue and the reason I haven't uploaded so long (I didn't even think I would keep doing this but I decided to anyway) is that I'm with my family for New Year. I'm not even in America's hemisphere right now xD**

**I'm leaving tomorrow for home so I'll be able to upload more :3**

* * *

"Ehem..." Nam coughed awkwardly into her burnt sleeve, "Um... Heh heh..." she smiled guiltily at her sister who stood before her with her arms cross and eyes in a cold, sharp glare, "Wow, you sure do look great-"

"I don't want to hear it, Jie-chan! I don't know how you managed to mess up this badly! First on your date, now the matchmaker! What will I do with you- You know what? I don't even care!" Mei cried, "You know what? Yeah that's right! I'm done! I give up!" Mei then stopped talking and spun around on the balls of her feet and marched furiously towards the house soon out of sight.

Nam fidgeted, and turned to Yong Soo hoping for some kind of pep talk, but all he did was shake his head disappointedly at her and walk away leaving Nam alone in the crowd.

She stood there watching them, feeling the pitiful, annoyed eyes of the on lookers beating down on her back. And what happened next didn't surprise anyone. A single tear dripped down her cheek from her overly embellished eye. No, it wasn't crying! One tear is not crying!

After wiping away the ONE tear which smeared her black eyeliner into her white face, Nam stomped her foot on the floor and huffed drawing a great many eyes. She tore the ribbon from her hair and let it all fall gracelessly around her, shed the top robe, the sash, obi, and kicked off her tall sandals in the middle of the street. Soon just wearing her thin, tan pants and short, white toga and Nam stormed down the dusty road.

Nam marched angrily through the town until she made it to the empty rice fields, which had just been harvested. She glared down at the grimy, muddy water that lay still in shallow pools below her.

She had never been more furious, just because this... this had to happen, Mei and even Yong Soo were angry with her and she was mad at them for throwing her in with a lion.

Nam had looked like fool running away from the matchmaker and cowering behind her sister like a baby and if there was one thing Nam refused to be; was a fool.

She would not end up like Mei, groomed and prepped for a bride with twenty kids, she most definitely didn't want to live with her parents all her life and she didn't want to be a priestess and those were the only dignified options open to a daughter of a businessman. She didn't want that though, she had heard of great women generals of the South and the respected Queens and worshiped female Gods of the west… But not in her country, here women were wives, and if they weren't wives they were priestess or sluts sold to rich men… why was Nam born like this? She was smart and understood war and she knew things about the world that some men didn't even know.

Nam grimaced and jumped into the rice paddy splattering mud everywhere. Nam wanted to be poet or a soldier, a minstrel, a trader, a shepherd, a traveler, a guide through the mountains… Nam knew those Mountains better than anyone!

She looked up at them from where she stood, ankle deep in the mud. They were peaked high in the sky and daunting and they terrified everyone in the village. Small children were told not go there because of demons and horrors beyond their wildest nightmares.

So, of course, a young Nam had marched into the forest of black pine leading up to the mountains as soon as she was old enough to break out of her crib. She wandered the woods and soon graduated to spending days at a time in the mountains (passing it off as spending a few days helping the monk Shamar clean the temple)

Nam loved the mountains, because all there really was are rabbits and foxes in the woods leading up to the peaks. When Nam got older, she found wandering around in the mountains relaxing. She knew all the paths, all the paths with robbers or animals or drops offs and all the paths safe for carts and horses.

… She felt stupid that it had taken her so long to realize this. A guide! A guide through the mountains. You had to take those mountains to get to the city of Dadu (China's capital) if you went to the east (her home was in the South) and to the North there was a huge city (Shangdu) with people lining up for local guides to take them through. When Nam was young and exploring the mountains she would see the caravans taking their cargo to Dadu and the guides leading the way. She would sit and watch their progress from high up sometimes. It fascinated her.

Nam sat in the mud and smiled wide, a guide through the mountain pass… her brain conjured up the most romantic idea of what a guides life would be like.

But a female guide would never be accepted… no one would pay a her to take them through dark, dank valleys or over harrowing cliffs.

And then another idea hit Nam like a boulder, she could be a man. It was all so simple, so perfect that Nam was disgusted with herself for not thinking it up sooner.

And I mean really, what had being a woman ever done for her?


	3. Men

**Thank you everyone whose reading this ^^**

**Yes I know, I suck at uploading things xI Sue me.**

**Skamar=Tibet**

**Kasam=Thai **

**I think the rest are easy to firgure out xD**

**Oroin mend=Mongolian greeting (it's normaly in cyrilic but I'll just leave it like that~)**

* * *

Nam stood in front of her house in Yong Soo's old stable clothes, thick, burlap pants that cut off around the calves and met with sturdy, raw hide boots tied up with brown sting, and a tan robe tied with a dark brown obi covering her tightly wrapped chest.

Her hair was strung up high on her head in a bun and cut much shorter. She damn well looked like a boy. And she thought, with a big boast to her ego, an attractive one.

Nam was contemplating weather to say good bye to Yong Soo (their stable boy who lived on the property) or her beloved sister… Sounded to cliché.

So Nam walked briskly from the gate clutching her horse's reins and down the path towards the darkened city, which she wouldn't miss at all. Okay, maybe she would miss Hong, Kasum, Mei, Yong Soo, and Skamar. She wished she could take them with her.

Nam stopped walking and sat down in front of a small house, letting her horse eat from the garden she looked about the town feeling nostalgic. Even though she hated everything the town itself represented, she found herself missing it's small charms already.

And having the scene of her sister waking up alone in their room and a image of Yong Soo walking through town without Nam sent a tiny shock of regret up her spine to her brain.

Nam adjusted her obi and slipped the burlap sack off her horse's back and stole a small piece of charcoal and a small sheet of paper and started jotting down some of the simple characters she had learned from Kong her writing and penmen ship left much to be disired, she couldn't write but she could read something that always confused her.

She stashed the letter back into her obi and started towards the only man she would ever trust

When Nam entered the temple, the first thing she saw was Skamar sweeping dust away from the statue of Buddha, his orange robe and bald head looking exceptionally bright in the moonlight that shone on his solitary figure like a blue spotlight.

Nam couldn't help but smile, Skamar was, and always would be, her best friend. She loved him.

But that was when she was a girl, now she was a man. With her fresh start in mind, Nam cleared her throat catching Skamar's attention.

"Good evening traveler." Skamar bowed to Nam as she entered the temple, he set down the broom to approach her.

"Hello monk." Nam said gruffly, blushing furiously all the while because she had this gut retching feeling that he recognized her. But his kind eyes betrayed no emotion.

"May I help you, traveler?" He asked her.

"I… I need you to give this to Bei Fong Family." Nam said stiffly, holding out her letter. Skamar blinked, and then nodded slowly.

"I would be happy to traveler." He said, taking the letter then examining it carefully and curiously, "What is your name, traveler?" Skamar asked, gently looking up at her.

The question was so normal, so expected Nam had blurted out her real name, "Nam." She had said quickly then choked instantly on the "m", "Naaaam… ran. Naran." The two started at each other blankly for a moment.

"Na…ran? Naran?" Skamar cocked his head to the side, looking at the flustered "man" before him who blushed even more and nodded furiously.

"Naran…" she grunted in affirmation, her arms at her sides and eyes straying to the right, "I travel the country… I'm from Mongolia. _Oroin mend_." She mumbled, chancing a glance up at Skamar who was simply smiling his usual smile. Like he knew more than she did, his smile was not an arrogant smile, but a knowing one.

"If you don't mind me asking, Naran, what are you asking of the Bei Fong family?"

"Uh, I'm running off with their eldest daughter." Which was honestly believable, Nam would have done anything to get out, "I just want them to know that she wasn't kidnapped or anything."

"Ah." Skamar nodded, obviously not worried about Nam, the girl could take care of herself, "I do wish you luck with your new bride, Naran."

"Thank you." Nam bowed to her friend one last time before starting off, "Have a good life." She raised a hand for goodbye.

"Good bye…" Skamar said to her, bowing slightly as she passed him. And with a slight glint in his eye, Skamar added, "Nam."

When Nam turned, eyes wide, Skamar added the last bit, "Ran."

Nam sighed and continued out the door. For a monk, that man was annoyingly devious.


End file.
